Receive the latest national-international updates in your inbox

President Donald Trump smiles during a speech at a dinner celebrating Evangelical leadership in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Aug. 27, 2018.

In a closed-door meeting with evangelical leaders Monday night, President Donald Trump repeated his debunked claim that he had gotten "rid of" a law forbidding churches and charitable organizations from endorsing political candidates, according to recorded excerpts reviewed by NBC News.

In fact, the law remains on the books, after efforts to kill it in Congress last year failed.

But Trump cited this alleged accomplishment as one in a series of gains he has made for his conservative Christian supporters, as he warned "You're one election away from losing everything that you've got," and said their opponents were "violent people" who would overturn these gains "violently."